Please note, I fully support just about everything that Ms. Hicks says in her article, I invite you to click on the link provided and see more details. However there is one claim that she makes (in the original article) that I wish was substantiated:
"The British computing industry, both governmental and private sector, hemorrhaged talent, she says—and essentially lost its lead in tech because of it."
I'm sure the British computing industry DID hemorrhage talent because of this pervasive bigotry (like against gays, R.I.P. Alan Turing) but did it "lose its lead" because of it? Doesn't that imply that conditions were better in other, competing countries? I'm sure they were in some, I've heard that the Soviet Union valued women much more equally than the West; however I'm assuming she's referring to the U.S. Were conditions in America that much better? (Maybe they were, I didn't see the movie "Hidden Figures"; how did that portray Minority(!) women doing high level STEM work? Was it accurate?)
As far as I'm concerned women make excellent programmers, the top coder in our company that has exceptional talent (numerous winners of national mathematics/programming awards) is a woman. To that end, we've actually designed the facility to make sexual harassment more difficult (like glass doors to all non-rest rooms so that nobody thinks they can make a move on someone without possibly being seen).
Notwithstanding the many good comments about how this is "weak" A.I. and such, this may be the beginning where the curve* starts going vertical.
When machines start improving (parts of) machines, that's when we'll see possibly superhuman performance. Of course things won't really go exponential until machines start improving ALL of themselves and not just some isolated part (like this). That assumes that there isn't some sort of ceiling that they hit on the road to general intelligence (that evolution seems to have broken through with us) and then super intelligence.
When I look at the Trumpian mean, hateful, bigoted, fake world view, I hope that our robot masters either uplift us quickly or give us a merciful death. As long as it isn't some dystopian nightmare ("I have no mouth yet I must scream").
*by "curve" I mean of performance, efficiency, cost or some other metric
Assuming it is (still) in a âoeparkingâ orbit (ha ha) around Mars and assuming that Mankind survives and prospers enough to colonize Mars, thatâ(TM)ll be one heck of a collectors item!
It should be in mint(?) condition and, because itâ(TM)s electric, might actually work on planets without oxygen (the driver will need to wear a spacesuit of course).
Then again, if it put into a stable parking orbit and presumably not âoelostâ or abandoned, are there any salvage rights? Call in the space lawyers! (Be careful though, their fees are astronomical!)
Oh, I was assuming that they found some DNA in it and that they were still wondering if it was non-terrestrial.
Obviously, if it was a living organism and managed to live and reproduce without DNA it would be extra-terrestrial. (Only some viruses managed to use RNA instead, some people don't consider them alive). That would make this discovery even more astounding!
No, if it had DNA it might still be extra-terrestrial. Of course if it used different bases or a different "Code of Life" (codon triplets) or different amino-acids, it would still be (quickly? easily?) detectable as non-terrestrial. I was commenting on the case where it shared all these things with terrestrial life but STILL could be (easily) found of non-terrestrial origin.
Yeah the MinION is capable of giving close to real time results (you can let it run for a few minutes and see what you've got!).
If it really is "Alien Life" and does use DNA then the key will be sample prep. Hopefully they've got the ability to do PCR up there, that should amplify the DNA enough for them to get some reliable data.
Don't think the people/equipment on ISS are capable of doing the relatively new (and difficult?) technique of single cell sequencing. Of course you could (and will be) brining it back to earth but do you really want to do that?
Oh there are several that immediately come to mind. First is the protein used in PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) it is a DNA polymerase that can withstand very high temperatures (it was found in thermophilic bacteria living in deep sea volcanic vents). That is now extremely widely used in molecular biology and garnered the person who figured it could be used as a DNA copy machine, a Nobel Prize. Another is the protein(s) used in CRISPR-cas9; that allows the precise editing of DNA and was found in bacteria as a defense mechanism against invading viruses. A patent battle between Harvard and MIT's Broad institute and (I think) UC Berkeley was only recently resolved but it didn't stop the discoverer from starting a well funded startup ("Editas"). She's in line to get a Nobel as well. There are other proteins that, even while not completely new to science are worth billions (think insulin) as well as their bioengineered equivalent (humulin). Anyway, if I could get even a fragment of an alien organism's DNA, there could be miracles to be found (especially one that can survive the hard vacuum and radiation of space!).
They have miniature DNA sequencer on board, they can find out if it matches at all with any sequenced earthly strain. (I have one also, it is a MinION by Oxford nanowire technologies. Although not perfect it should be capable of sequencing this).
If it truly of extraterrestrial origin it should be immediately obvious as it is would have diverged very far from the âoeTree of Lifeâ (thatâ(TM)s assuming there are any similarities at all).
It, would also be incredibly valuable and not just from a scientific standpoint. Just a single completely novel protein has caused multi-billion dollar biotech revolutions. Here would be an organism with potentially thousands.
... that its "Bphone the best smartphone the world" (2015). It sank without a trace.
I'd treat that their claims that "Apple has done this not so well" and "Face ID can be fooled by mask, which means it is not an effective security measure" with a grain of salt. Of course their company is from Vietnam, "land of fakes" https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/ci... where scandal after scandal of dangerous, counterfeit and frank outright fraud is commonplace.
Unfortunately I have firsthand experience of this:(
Disregarding the fact that that's a pretty specific estimate (not "20-30 percent" or "around 25%") which tends to make people believe it more (that's why when you negotiate, you should try to give a precise amount; it makes it appear as if you have more justification for the numbers); I'm not sure exactly what their claim means.
I think it means; take China's already staggering (and probably a little inflated) growth rate, and increase it by 26% EVERY YEAR.
That's instead of taking whatever growth would've happened between now and 2030 (at ~6%/year compounded, we're talking a very big amount) and increase it by 26%. This amount, while still very large is a lot smaller than increasing their ~6% growth rate by 26% every year (~6% x 1.26 = ~7.56%). Compounded annually it's huge.
In any case, the only thing that'll stop the juggernaut of Chinese "communism" from making economic vassals of us all is if there is some structural flaw in their system that'll reveal itself as it gets more developed/richer. Like, if the people who claim that Asian educational systems are not capable of turning out the kind of people who make discoveries as opposed to implementing them; if those people are right. Or if the Chinese masses, once they've moved up the hierarchy of "needs", decide that wealth without "freedom" is not worth it and change the system (hopefully without bringing the whole world down).
Reasonable people could disagree on these points and I'm not sure what will happen. If the U.S. hadn't shown how democracies can be perverted by demagogues (even stupid fraudulent ones); I would think the rise of autocratic China should be avoided at all costs. If they only had rule of law (instead of power and corruption) and at least a pretense of the protection of human rights, I might even consider them the rightful leaders of mankind.
Just wondering, now that it's run out of its cryogenic coolant, are its infrared sensors in the optimal wavelength to "see" Dyson spheres? (I guess that means it's looking for objects at about 300K).
If so, that would be a really long-shot project to try using it on but if it has nothing else to do maybe some billionaire could fund it on a whim.
On the other hand, just how much nitrogen propellant is left? If the orbit could be adjusted so that it could focus just on the dark side of the earth (wasn't blinded by daylight), perhaps it could be used as the ultimate "night vision" device. The DOD or CIA might be very interested in having something that could see, with extreme sensitivity, stuff in the dark. Of course this might mean a BIG orbit change, going from L2(?) to some sort of sun-synchronous halo orbit around the earth. Still, if they're willing to go slow, maybe they could use the "interplanetary express" or whatever it's called to use the bare minimum of propellant by exploiting chaotic hills and valleys in gravitational fields.
Or maybe it could be used for brown dwarfs or wandering interstellar planets (big ones that would still be glowing in the infrared).
Or maybe it could be used, like the Hubble, for an extreme deep field survey to see the furthest objects in the universe. Since it has nothing else to do, it could be left to train on a single "spot" for thousands(?) of hours collecting one photon at a time. The extreme red-shifts it would collect would be from the very furthest objects at the dawn of cosmic time.
Maybe it could be used for making a "heat map" of the moons of Jupiter or Enceladeus and look for cracks in the ice. Or, for that matter, if it could be repositioned (again needs fuel) it could look for ice on our moon.
I wonder what a long period comet looks like in the deep infrared as it approaches the sun from a great distance. Might see some interesting plumes/ejecta.
sorry had a lot of coffee so just rambling. Probably a lot of these have already been tried
... and Elon Musk! I think I read that he might be sending a manned spacecraft around the moon (and back).
Seriously, I'm not too worried (or impressed) by other nations repeating something that the U.S. did fifty years ago and that now a private citizen is developing the technology to do himself (ok his company).
And even if India's effort is cheaper than a NEW falcon heavy, will it be cheaper than one of his reused rockets? One that's been flown a few times? A dozen times? Once these space powers make reusable rockets, I'll be more worried but I won't be (as) impressed. Why? Because as I think most engineers will tell you, just KNOWING that something that was previously thought impossible/extremely difficult is doable is half the battle (and that's assuming that these nations intelligence agencies haven't already stolen all of Space-X's plans). (That's why the Russian Concordski and Rutan weren't as impressive as the originals. However Sputnik certainly was!)
I read the linked article and maybe I'm old (Ok I am old) but I couldn't see how this was "Game changing".
Landing 11 story boosters and re-launching them? Yes
Making a new liquid fueled rocket engine (that wasn't even using LH2 which I hear is harder). Not so sure
I realize that of all the parts of a rocket, the engine is the hardest. Like an air-force general said "A new plane doesn't make a new engine possible, a new engine makes a new plane possible" you get the idea. Still, considering the number and variety of liquid fueled engines out there (from the Russian RS-180 to NASA's RS-25 to Space-X's Merlin and even to Aerojet's AR1 which they refer to in the article), I'm not sure how this qualifies as game changing. An improvement? Maybe but I didn't see where in my (brief) reading of the article. And does even a less than order of magnitude improvement merit being a game changer?
Is the term being overused here or am I missing something?
I have recently become involved in a BioTech startup
Our goal is to demystify the human genome; while the cost of sequencing a human has gone down by a factor of a MILLION in 15 years (blowing away Moore's "Law"), not so the ability to analyze it. Now, using the absolute best technology, we hope to finally unravel the mysteries from 3.5 billion year old spaghetti code (your DNA randomly programmed by natural selection).
In short, we hope to provide EXACTLY what was promised/feared in the movie GATTACA (which I just saw recently), as human-ly (or A.I.-ly) accurate a statistical analysis as possible of what your genome says about you and your future. Of course, I'm hoping that because of OTHER ground breaking technologies (CRISPR-cas9), our future may not be as dystopian as what was in the film, since we will hope to "cure" your genetic flaws. (And anyway, was that future so bad? They had dozens of space flights a day to far off destinations like Titan, so matching genotypes to jobs seemed like it made for a prosperous efficient society. Also, to be honest, perhaps the main character should have died during liftoff, his genetic heart condition, already foreseen while on a treadmill stress test, dooming him and the entire mission.)
What I'm getting at is that while changing the world with new technologies may be good, you might get unwanted effects. (Consider all the Puerto Ricans without cash because the ATM machines don't work). It works both ways of course, the recently approved CURE for some forms of blindness utilizes the H.I.V. virus to get the CRISPR genetic editing mechanism into the eye, so a deadly disease has been repurposed. But then, of course, H.I.V. could be re-weaponized to deliver the "gene drive" capable of wiping out entire species.
I think that is the point of "Homo Deus" or Man the God, a book which talks about our world, species and biosphere changing technologies is about. Basically, compared to our ancestors, we ARE gods, or at least demigods; capable of traveling enormous distances, living long (mainly) illness free lifespans, accessing much of all knowledge almost everywhere, anytime. We don't need super-science like portal guns or the uber-genius of Rick Sanchez, although he clearly realizes that with his abilities and knowledge "I am a god". (He says this in the White House while casually massacring the security staff.)
However not only is our wisdom failing to keep up (who ever named Man "Homo Sapiens"?) but our laws, regulations and policies are a patchwork net that has much more to do with local political considerations than any understanding of the issues. (See Change, Climate). And then there are some bad actors, people who are not answerable to anyone but willing to use these god-like powers towards their own ends (Kim Jong-Un, I'm looking at you).
So, while I'm (obviously) betting that sci-fi-tech will vastly improve our future, I have been spending some time thinking about the possible consequences. Should we allow ANYONE to get the results of our genetic tests? Just doctors? Can the authorities access them? Do they need a court order? What if they're from a "repressive" regime? What about insurance companies? Employers? Vending Machines? Let us hope that those geniuses who decide not to code amusing Apps but tackle real problems, spend some time also thinking about what-ifs.
I'm impressed by the fact that 26 years ago, some scientists put underground cables to warm the soil 5C and kept it that way for 26 years.
I'm glad somebody even thought of this that long ago, it was (for most people) not on their radar. Who knows what other studies were proposed and were denied because of the political climate from the (Bush) administration. Then again, maybe it was funded by the university. Go Hahvahd!
To the deniers: If we agree on nothing else can we at least agree on continuing to fund well planned scientific studies on the climate? If you really think there is no truth to this then you should be all for it, all the data is public and in fact you can run the studies yourselves! I've always thought that the TRUTH may come from people you completely disagree with.
It would be a crime if due to the political winds/lobbyists these studies were denied, it's like an ostrich sticking its head into the ground (do they really do that?). It's would be like how federal studies into the links between gun ownership and gun violence is PROHIBITED or how the federal government isn't allowed to even negotiate for lower drug prices (despite being a huge buyer, through medicare/medicaid).
Two things are crippling America: poor basic education in some parts of America due to widely uneven funding based on local communities resources (kinda defeats the idea of giving the next generation a fair chance). The other is legalized corruption by allowing unlimited corporate donations to politicians; for example this has resulted in American health care costs being more than twice that of the next country in the entire world! (With worse outcomes)
isn't free speech, neither is deliberately misleading speech.
Let's face it, half of all people are of below average intelligence and those people are more likely to be fooled. It's BAD ENOUGH when there are "News" institutions whose adherence to proper journalistic standards (like vetting commentators and sources and getting independent confirmation) is weak.
It's DOWN RIGHT CRIMINAL when people (or governments! Russia I'm talking to you) deliberately mislead people for their own purposes. Those easily fooled people can be swayed into doing all sorts of things that are not in the public (or their own) self interest.
Short of genetic engineering (don't worry, that's my field, I'm working on it!), we're not going to be raising the average IQ of people very quickly. (And as far as getting more than half of all people to be better than average, you'd better talk to your local mathematician). However, what we COULD do is provide a better, BASIC education for all citizens which would be the first line of defense against unfounded, unverified claims. An ability to use critical thinking (perhaps with a dose of basic economics and science for living in this commercial technological age) should be a prerequisite for living in this modern world, too bad it would be politically impossible to make it a requirement for voting.
I have heard that the real downfall of American democracy began (sorry to say) with Reagan. Even though it can be claimed that some of his ideas were good and he was inspiring to millions, his de-regulation of the economy unfortunately (from what I have heard, I was too young to understand) extended to education.
His, "let competition reign" philosophy broke the covenant of the American educational system so that (again, from what I understand), schools became increasingly dependent on their local circumstances. Hence, schools in rich districts could hire good teachers and had good facilities whereas schools in poor and rural districts fell farther and farther behind (not that they were equal in the first place). In this way, the (I think) nationwide premise that all Americans be given a good basic education was shattered; this has resulted in the paradox of Americans leading the world in science and technology and Nobel prizes (with a healthy influx of immigrants of course) yet with abysmal high school graduation rates and scores when compared to other wealthy nations.
Unfortunately, I don't see an easy way out; as this last year has proven the "moron" (not my words, the Secretary of State said it!) having been elected by the under educated bottom half, is running the show. He (and they) will continue to put into place policies that will further widen the divide between the educated and the poorly educated; between the professional class and between people who don't understand the scientific principle. I'm not quite sure where this will end up; the educated "elite" (when did being "the best" become a dirty word?) still retains power and money but it is unclear if the under educated will ever be able to see past the lies the leaders they elected tell them. Even then, it'll likely take a generation to rebuild the damage the Reagan revolution has done and truly rebuild an America that is restored equal opportunity THROUGH EDUCATION to all.
Then again, as a Republican Senator just said, our duly elected leader might trigger "World War III". Well in that case, we won't even have to wait for climate change to do us in, I guess our civilization and maybe even species just wasn't meant to last.
Seriously, is everything in these encryption algorithms protected by hoping that the product of two large prime numbers can't be easily factored? If so, then I would assume all the world's secrets (and ability to conduct financial transactions) are theirs.
It's sad that the first network using quantum encryption was put up (literally) by the Chinese (it's using satellites).
... anywhere Obama didn't want to (and vice versa).
If Obama was for it then Trump (or perhaps more precisely his supporters) are against it. It doesn't matter if it is right or wrong, they have PRE-judged the situation. Why? Because, and I'll be frank, they're racists or to use a softer word, bigots and PREjudice is what you'll get from them.
It's only now, in the somewhat clearer light of day after the election year (and now that Obama's blackness isn't quite so apparent), that it has become obvious how wrong most (all?) of Trump's positions were. Like his "I'll slap China with a 40% tariff on day one" or "I'll declare them a currency manipulator" or "I'll throw out NAFTA" or (of course) "Mexico will pay for the wall" or "Hillary's in bed with Goldman Sachs" (when three of Trump's top positions are from GS) or "I'll drain the swamp" and now allowing prior lobbyists to be hired by the White House or "The Iranian deal was a disaster" (he's recertified it twice) or "It won't happen" with a North Korean ICBM test to allowing ICBM and even H-bomb tests or "I'll support LGBT" people" then reversing protections and "no need to count them in the Census". Oh and of course let's not forget his insistence on demolishing Obamacare despite the fact that neither he nor congress nor the senate can come up with something better than what he has says is "a disaster called the big lie".
So I figure that Trump (and his supporters) just can't stand anything that Obama did so of course he'll decide to go to the moon because Obama wasn't going to. Then again, maybe it's just a lack of judgment as indicated by his campaign being assisted by a hostile foreign power (Russia) with several of his former staff now under multiple investigations (Flynn, Manafort) for TRAITOROUS crimes (not e-mails, think assisting a foreign power, $12M paid in one arrangement alone). Speaking of which, his wishing to continue to prosecute Clinton for using an a private e-mail account for official business is obviously hypocritical considering that SIX senior white house staff are using private e-mail accounts (with Kushner using three!) while serving in the White House. This lack of judgement of course extends to his evaluation of people like the many times he's flipped what he says about his top people from hiring them to "I have confidence in them" to firing them (Comey, Price, Bannon, Priebus). That of course doesn't count the number of times he's praised then flipped on people saying for example (Hillary Clinton) "is a great woman. And a good woman." and I "think she really works hard." and "I think she’d make a great president" to basically saying she should be imprisoned and implying much worse ("Shoot the b**tch" was a T-shirt he apparently didn't have problem with).
So, and I think you fellow slash dotters, have to SERIOUSLY ask yourself this question. Spend some time, don't jump to conclusions and weigh the evidence. Is he (and his followers) bigoted or just stupid?
I think a lot of both.:(
As far as going to the moon or not, that's for another post. However the Chinese:( or Elon Musk:) will probably get there first
Like if you're a single guy/gal to look out for people who might pique your interest... Like if you're security conscious, look out for people (cars?) who are UN-familiar in your area... Like if you're an artist/designer/fashion person, look for certain patterns, colors, STYLES (ok, that'll be hard).
Having a brain behind the camera that isn't yours (the brain not the camera) lends itself to all sorts of interesting possibilities. Maybe it could even be taught to look for certain patterns (like this person or this KIND of person comes by this spot under these circumstances/times). Might be useful for marketing (oops, maybe that's not a good thing) but definitely surveillance.
It would also be good if the camera could read (in addition to having geo-tagging). That way it might be more context aware. Oh, and how about hearing? That way it could learn more about its environment (and what people are saying). How about a speaker? That way it could interrogate its subjects. Hmm... with enough work, this camera could become sentient!
So I know this probably wasn't the prime motivation for their research but if it could please lead to a cure for jet-lag I would hope they would be showered with huge monetary awards as well! As I've gotten older, jet-lag has made long-distance flying a source of real debilitation. I know this is (mostly) a first-world problem but there are plenty of pilots/military/leaders for whom being able to arrive reasonably alert (or at least not literally feeling sick) would be quite valuable for them and for those that they serve.
It isn't unheard of for a Nobel prize in medicine to lead, relatively quickly, to a treatment or a new drug. I think the scientists who discovered vasoconstriction inhibitors(?) found that it could be used therapeutically and it was commercialized rapidly. I'm talking about Viagra of course and I just happen to know about this because I'm, uh... interested!
like programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Sorry that's the only (hopefully funny) comment I could come up to contribute (and I didn't even come up with it, I read it somewhere in pre-Internet time!).
This flying "car" looks a lot like the KittyHawk Flyer (TM). Judging from the videos it seems that the KittyHawk is quite a bit further along, taking people aloft for demo flights at several major public venues.
They look awfully similar which begs the question, is this another case of Russians SLAVIshly (ha ha, slavic get it?) copying a western design? (The Concordski and Space Shuttle come to mind). However this may simply be just because of the constraints put on by current technology, like the electric motors and batteries. Anyway, it's not clear yet which design is better; there are also woefully few details on the KittyHawk site.
I'd be tempted to go with the KH just because of the fact that 1) their demos seem to indicate its a lot closer to production 2) they have backing from one of the Google Founders 3) they seem to have been paying attention to FAA regulatory issues (it'll be a FAR 103 Ultralight) but since the KH is meant only to be used over freshwater in un-congested areas, if the Russian design has something that'll allow it to be used in more locations, it's worth a look.
Considering that in 50 years the climate is projected there to become LETHAL to a normal, healthy adult in the shade, I think this is the only way that these countries will continue to exist.
Actually, this solution may work, grandiose as it is, for the rich cities like Dubai (assuming they can live off their oil derived fortunes). Unfortunately for those who cannot afford to live in round the clock air-conditioned environments, like the entire country of Yemen, they'll DIE.
Or they'll join the hundreds of millions of refugees from that just that part of the world. (It doesn't include the more than HALF A BILLION people living in similar areas in South Asia). Or the hundreds of millions from other countries including East China and even parts of the U.S.
Of course, they'll try to find a cooler climate to live in, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH. How the world will handle this, when the (tiny by comparison) six million refugees from the Syrian war has tightened borders everywhere, does not inspire hope.
The future may be a very very horrific place for much of humanity
Pretty soon, A.I. will be able to identify you in public; first when you voluntarily give up your "identity" (such as use a fingerprint scanner or iris scanner) then at a distance when facial recognition or voice analysis will be able to pick you out of a crowd. Maybe, paired with enough data, you'll even be tracked from a great distance based on your clothing and gait analysis.
They'll be able to learn what you do, what you drive, what you eat (and where and when) and of course who you associate with (and maybe why!). Soon, your preferences and habits will become part of your profile; whether or not you like your coffee black, are you an aggressive driver, do you look at other members of the opposite sex.
Let's hope that the people keeping this data don't get hacked (like Equifax!).
Finally, this will be paired with your genetic profile (full disclosure, that's what I analyze). Then, unless pesky privacy laws prevent this, they'll be able to match your habits/health/profession with your gene expression. In the best outcome; you'll get an e-mail from Genes "R" Us saying that with a simple modification of your genes administered (via oral CRISPR) you could be 20% more effective in your work/sex life/happiness. In the worst outcome you'll be subtly manipulated to purchase products that for some strange reason appeal to you; or you'll find yourself doing things that aren't in your best interest (like becoming very irritable when exposed to a certain scent). Of course, if the people who are manipulating you are allowed to make changes to your DNA then you could literally end up their puppet. (Well, once they have behavioral genetics figured out).
But don't worry, this won't happen for at least another 5 years!
Yes, I took a look at TFA and although they didn't go about simulating the "universe" from basic laws (not that we have a theory of everything yet:) they DID start at the (sort of) particle level using something called OTCA megapixels. From these they built the fundamental logic gates and from that a (simple?) computer and from that a (simple?) language and (simple?) compiler and then wrote and compiled and ran a (simple, no colors or audio?) Tetris program!
So if anyone tells you they don't believe that we are living in a simulation, just show them what a bunch of (very very smart) engineers were able to do in their (spare?) time!:)
Slashdot Mirror
Please note, I fully support just about everything that Ms. Hicks says in her article, I invite you to click on the link provided and see more details. However there is one claim that she makes (in the original article) that I wish was substantiated:
"The British computing industry, both governmental and private sector, hemorrhaged talent, she says—and essentially lost its lead in tech because of it."
I'm sure the British computing industry DID hemorrhage talent because of this pervasive bigotry (like against gays, R.I.P. Alan Turing) but did it "lose its lead" because of it? Doesn't that imply that conditions were better in other, competing countries? I'm sure they were in some, I've heard that the Soviet Union valued women much more equally than the West; however I'm assuming she's referring to the U.S. Were conditions in America that much better? (Maybe they were, I didn't see the movie "Hidden Figures"; how did that portray Minority(!) women doing high level STEM work? Was it accurate?)
As far as I'm concerned women make excellent programmers, the top coder in our company that has exceptional talent (numerous winners of national mathematics/programming awards) is a woman. To that end, we've actually designed the facility to make sexual harassment more difficult (like glass doors to all non-rest rooms so that nobody thinks they can make a move on someone without possibly being seen).
Notwithstanding the many good comments about how this is "weak" A.I. and such, this may be the beginning where the curve* starts going vertical.
When machines start improving (parts of) machines, that's when we'll see possibly superhuman performance. Of course things won't really go exponential until machines start improving ALL of themselves and not just some isolated part (like this). That assumes that there isn't some sort of ceiling that they hit on the road to general intelligence (that evolution seems to have broken through with us) and then super intelligence.
When I look at the Trumpian mean, hateful, bigoted, fake world view, I hope that our robot masters either uplift us quickly or give us a merciful death. As long as it isn't some dystopian nightmare ("I have no mouth yet I must scream").
*by "curve" I mean of performance, efficiency, cost or some other metric
... the most valuable car in the solar system.
Assuming it is (still) in a âoeparkingâ orbit (ha ha) around Mars and assuming that Mankind survives and prospers enough to colonize Mars, thatâ(TM)ll be one heck of a collectors item!
It should be in mint(?) condition and, because itâ(TM)s electric, might actually work on planets without oxygen (the driver will need to wear a spacesuit of course).
Then again, if it put into a stable parking orbit and presumably not âoelostâ or abandoned, are there any salvage rights? Call in the space lawyers! (Be careful though, their fees are astronomical!)
Oh, I was assuming that they found some DNA in it and that they were still wondering if it was non-terrestrial.
Obviously, if it was a living organism and managed to live and reproduce without DNA it would be extra-terrestrial. (Only some viruses managed to use RNA instead, some people don't consider them alive). That would make this discovery even more astounding!
No, if it had DNA it might still be extra-terrestrial. Of course if it used different bases or a different "Code of Life" (codon triplets) or different amino-acids, it would still be (quickly? easily?) detectable as non-terrestrial. I was commenting on the case where it shared all these things with terrestrial life but STILL could be (easily) found of non-terrestrial origin.
Yeah the MinION is capable of giving close to real time results (you can let it run for a few minutes and see what you've got!).
If it really is "Alien Life" and does use DNA then the key will be sample prep. Hopefully they've got the ability to do PCR up there, that should amplify the DNA enough for them to get some reliable data.
Don't think the people/equipment on ISS are capable of doing the relatively new (and difficult?) technique of single cell sequencing. Of course you could (and will be) brining it back to earth but do you really want to do that?
Oh there are several that immediately come to mind. First is the protein used in PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) it is a DNA polymerase that can withstand very high temperatures (it was found in thermophilic bacteria living in deep sea volcanic vents). That is now extremely widely used in molecular biology and garnered the person who figured it could be used as a DNA copy machine, a Nobel Prize. Another is the protein(s) used in CRISPR-cas9; that allows the precise editing of DNA and was found in bacteria as a defense mechanism against invading viruses. A patent battle between Harvard and MIT's Broad institute and (I think) UC Berkeley was only recently resolved but it didn't stop the discoverer from starting a well funded startup ("Editas"). She's in line to get a Nobel as well.
There are other proteins that, even while not completely new to science are worth billions (think insulin) as well as their bioengineered equivalent (humulin).
Anyway, if I could get even a fragment of an alien organism's DNA, there could be miracles to be found (especially one that can survive the hard vacuum and radiation of space!).
They have miniature DNA sequencer on board, they can find out if it matches at all with any sequenced earthly strain. (I have one also, it is a MinION by Oxford nanowire technologies. Although not perfect it should be capable of sequencing this).
If it truly of extraterrestrial origin it should be immediately obvious as it is would have diverged very far from the âoeTree of Lifeâ (thatâ(TM)s assuming there are any similarities at all).
It, would also be incredibly valuable and not just from a scientific standpoint. Just a single completely novel protein has caused multi-billion dollar biotech revolutions. Here would be an organism with potentially thousands.
... that its "Bphone the best smartphone the world" (2015). It sank without a trace.
I'd treat that their claims that "Apple has done this not so well" and "Face ID can be fooled by mask, which means it is not an effective security measure" with a grain of salt. Of course their company is from Vietnam, "land of fakes" https://tuoitrenews.vn/news/ci... where scandal after scandal of dangerous, counterfeit and frank outright fraud is commonplace.
Unfortunately I have firsthand experience of this :(
Disregarding the fact that that's a pretty specific estimate (not "20-30 percent" or "around 25%") which tends to make people believe it more (that's why when you negotiate, you should try to give a precise amount; it makes it appear as if you have more justification for the numbers); I'm not sure exactly what their claim means.
I think it means; take China's already staggering (and probably a little inflated) growth rate, and increase it by 26% EVERY YEAR.
That's instead of taking whatever growth would've happened between now and 2030 (at ~6%/year compounded, we're talking a very big amount) and increase it by 26%. This amount, while still very large is a lot smaller than increasing their ~6% growth rate by 26% every year (~6% x 1.26 = ~7.56%). Compounded annually it's huge.
In any case, the only thing that'll stop the juggernaut of Chinese "communism" from making economic vassals of us all is if there is some structural flaw in their system that'll reveal itself as it gets more developed/richer. Like, if the people who claim that Asian educational systems are not capable of turning out the kind of people who make discoveries as opposed to implementing them; if those people are right. Or if the Chinese masses, once they've moved up the hierarchy of "needs", decide that wealth without "freedom" is not worth it and change the system (hopefully without bringing the whole world down).
Reasonable people could disagree on these points and I'm not sure what will happen. If the U.S. hadn't shown how democracies can be perverted by demagogues (even stupid fraudulent ones); I would think the rise of autocratic China should be avoided at all costs. If they only had rule of law (instead of power and corruption) and at least a pretense of the protection of human rights, I might even consider them the rightful leaders of mankind.
Just wondering, now that it's run out of its cryogenic coolant, are its infrared sensors in the optimal wavelength to "see" Dyson spheres? (I guess that means it's looking for objects at about 300K).
If so, that would be a really long-shot project to try using it on but if it has nothing else to do maybe some billionaire could fund it on a whim.
On the other hand, just how much nitrogen propellant is left? If the orbit could be adjusted so that it could focus just on the dark side of the earth (wasn't blinded by daylight), perhaps it could be used as the ultimate "night vision" device. The DOD or CIA might be very interested in having something that could see, with extreme sensitivity, stuff in the dark. Of course this might mean a BIG orbit change, going from L2(?) to some sort of sun-synchronous halo orbit around the earth. Still, if they're willing to go slow, maybe they could use the "interplanetary express" or whatever it's called to use the bare minimum of propellant by exploiting chaotic hills and valleys in gravitational fields.
Or maybe it could be used for brown dwarfs or wandering interstellar planets (big ones that would still be glowing in the infrared).
Or maybe it could be used, like the Hubble, for an extreme deep field survey to see the furthest objects in the universe. Since it has nothing else to do, it could be left to train on a single "spot" for thousands(?) of hours collecting one photon at a time. The extreme red-shifts it would collect would be from the very furthest objects at the dawn of cosmic time.
Maybe it could be used for making a "heat map" of the moons of Jupiter or Enceladeus and look for cracks in the ice. Or, for that matter, if it could be repositioned (again needs fuel) it could look for ice on our moon.
I wonder what a long period comet looks like in the deep infrared as it approaches the sun from a great distance. Might see some interesting plumes/ejecta.
sorry had a lot of coffee so just rambling. Probably a lot of these have already been tried
... and Elon Musk! I think I read that he might be sending a manned spacecraft around the moon (and back).
Seriously, I'm not too worried (or impressed) by other nations repeating something that the U.S. did fifty years ago and that now a private citizen is developing the technology to do himself (ok his company).
And even if India's effort is cheaper than a NEW falcon heavy, will it be cheaper than one of his reused rockets? One that's been flown a few times? A dozen times? Once these space powers make reusable rockets, I'll be more worried but I won't be (as) impressed. Why? Because as I think most engineers will tell you, just KNOWING that something that was previously thought impossible/extremely difficult is doable is half the battle (and that's assuming that these nations intelligence agencies haven't already stolen all of Space-X's plans). (That's why the Russian Concordski and Rutan weren't as impressive as the originals. However Sputnik certainly was!)
I read the linked article and maybe I'm old (Ok I am old) but I couldn't see how this was "Game changing".
Landing 11 story boosters and re-launching them? Yes
Making a new liquid fueled rocket engine (that wasn't even using LH2 which I hear is harder). Not so sure
I realize that of all the parts of a rocket, the engine is the hardest. Like an air-force general said "A new plane doesn't make a new engine possible, a new engine makes a new plane possible" you get the idea. Still, considering the number and variety of liquid fueled engines out there (from the Russian RS-180 to NASA's RS-25 to Space-X's Merlin and even to Aerojet's AR1 which they refer to in the article), I'm not sure how this qualifies as game changing. An improvement? Maybe but I didn't see where in my (brief) reading of the article. And does even a less than order of magnitude improvement merit being a game changer?
Is the term being overused here or am I missing something?
Oops got the Rick and Morty quote wrong. Next time I'll watch it with subtitles
I have recently become involved in a BioTech startup
Our goal is to demystify the human genome; while the cost of sequencing a human has gone down by a factor of a MILLION in 15 years (blowing away Moore's "Law"), not so the ability to analyze it. Now, using the absolute best technology, we hope to finally unravel the mysteries from 3.5 billion year old spaghetti code (your DNA randomly programmed by natural selection).
In short, we hope to provide EXACTLY what was promised/feared in the movie GATTACA (which I just saw recently), as human-ly (or A.I.-ly) accurate a statistical analysis as possible of what your genome says about you and your future. Of course, I'm hoping that because of OTHER ground breaking technologies (CRISPR-cas9), our future may not be as dystopian as what was in the film, since we will hope to "cure" your genetic flaws. (And anyway, was that future so bad? They had dozens of space flights a day to far off destinations like Titan, so matching genotypes to jobs seemed like it made for a prosperous efficient society. Also, to be honest, perhaps the main character should have died during liftoff, his genetic heart condition, already foreseen while on a treadmill stress test, dooming him and the entire mission.)
What I'm getting at is that while changing the world with new technologies may be good, you might get unwanted effects. (Consider all the Puerto Ricans without cash because the ATM machines don't work). It works both ways of course, the recently approved CURE for some forms of blindness utilizes the H.I.V. virus to get the CRISPR genetic editing mechanism into the eye, so a deadly disease has been repurposed. But then, of course, H.I.V. could be re-weaponized to deliver the "gene drive" capable of wiping out entire species.
I think that is the point of "Homo Deus" or Man the God, a book which talks about our world, species and biosphere changing technologies is about. Basically, compared to our ancestors, we ARE gods, or at least demigods; capable of traveling enormous distances, living long (mainly) illness free lifespans, accessing much of all knowledge almost everywhere, anytime. We don't need super-science like portal guns or the uber-genius of Rick Sanchez, although he clearly realizes that with his abilities and knowledge "I am a god". (He says this in the White House while casually massacring the security staff.)
However not only is our wisdom failing to keep up (who ever named Man "Homo Sapiens"?) but our laws, regulations and policies are a patchwork net that has much more to do with local political considerations than any understanding of the issues. (See Change, Climate). And then there are some bad actors, people who are not answerable to anyone but willing to use these god-like powers towards their own ends (Kim Jong-Un, I'm looking at you).
So, while I'm (obviously) betting that sci-fi-tech will vastly improve our future, I have been spending some time thinking about the possible consequences. Should we allow ANYONE to get the results of our genetic tests? Just doctors? Can the authorities access them? Do they need a court order? What if they're from a "repressive" regime? What about insurance companies? Employers? Vending Machines? Let us hope that those geniuses who decide not to code amusing Apps but tackle real problems, spend some time also thinking about what-ifs.
I'm impressed by the fact that 26 years ago, some scientists put underground cables to warm the soil 5C and kept it that way for 26 years.
I'm glad somebody even thought of this that long ago, it was (for most people) not on their radar. Who knows what other studies were proposed and were denied because of the political climate from the (Bush) administration. Then again, maybe it was funded by the university. Go Hahvahd!
To the deniers: If we agree on nothing else can we at least agree on continuing to fund well planned scientific studies on the climate? If you really think there is no truth to this then you should be all for it, all the data is public and in fact you can run the studies yourselves! I've always thought that the TRUTH may come from people you completely disagree with.
It would be a crime if due to the political winds/lobbyists these studies were denied, it's like an ostrich sticking its head into the ground (do they really do that?). It's would be like how federal studies into the links between gun ownership and gun violence is PROHIBITED or how the federal government isn't allowed to even negotiate for lower drug prices (despite being a huge buyer, through medicare/medicaid).
Two things are crippling America: poor basic education in some parts of America due to widely uneven funding based on local communities resources (kinda defeats the idea of giving the next generation a fair chance). The other is legalized corruption by allowing unlimited corporate donations to politicians; for example this has resulted in American health care costs being more than twice that of the next country in the entire world! (With worse outcomes)
isn't free speech, neither is deliberately misleading speech.
Let's face it, half of all people are of below average intelligence and those people are more likely to be fooled. It's BAD ENOUGH when there are "News" institutions whose adherence to proper journalistic standards (like vetting commentators and sources and getting independent confirmation) is weak.
It's DOWN RIGHT CRIMINAL when people (or governments! Russia I'm talking to you) deliberately mislead people for their own purposes. Those easily fooled people can be swayed into doing all sorts of things that are not in the public (or their own) self interest.
Short of genetic engineering (don't worry, that's my field, I'm working on it!), we're not going to be raising the average IQ of people very quickly. (And as far as getting more than half of all people to be better than average, you'd better talk to your local mathematician). However, what we COULD do is provide a better, BASIC education for all citizens which would be the first line of defense against unfounded, unverified claims. An ability to use critical thinking (perhaps with a dose of basic economics and science for living in this commercial technological age) should be a prerequisite for living in this modern world, too bad it would be politically impossible to make it a requirement for voting.
I have heard that the real downfall of American democracy began (sorry to say) with Reagan. Even though it can be claimed that some of his ideas were good and he was inspiring to millions, his de-regulation of the economy unfortunately (from what I have heard, I was too young to understand) extended to education.
His, "let competition reign" philosophy broke the covenant of the American educational system so that (again, from what I understand), schools became increasingly dependent on their local circumstances. Hence, schools in rich districts could hire good teachers and had good facilities whereas schools in poor and rural districts fell farther and farther behind (not that they were equal in the first place). In this way, the (I think) nationwide premise that all Americans be given a good basic education was shattered; this has resulted in the paradox of Americans leading the world in science and technology and Nobel prizes (with a healthy influx of immigrants of course) yet with abysmal high school graduation rates and scores when compared to other wealthy nations.
Unfortunately, I don't see an easy way out; as this last year has proven the "moron" (not my words, the Secretary of State said it!) having been elected by the under educated bottom half, is running the show. He (and they) will continue to put into place policies that will further widen the divide between the educated and the poorly educated; between the professional class and between people who don't understand the scientific principle. I'm not quite sure where this will end up; the educated "elite" (when did being "the best" become a dirty word?) still retains power and money but it is unclear if the under educated will ever be able to see past the lies the leaders they elected tell them. Even then, it'll likely take a generation to rebuild the damage the Reagan revolution has done and truly rebuild an America that is restored equal opportunity THROUGH EDUCATION to all.
Then again, as a Republican Senator just said, our duly elected leader might trigger "World War III". Well in that case, we won't even have to wait for climate change to do us in, I guess our civilization and maybe even species just wasn't meant to last.
will enable its user(s) to rule the world.
Seriously, is everything in these encryption algorithms protected by hoping that the product of two large prime numbers can't be easily factored? If so, then I would assume all the world's secrets (and ability to conduct financial transactions) are theirs.
It's sad that the first network using quantum encryption was put up (literally) by the Chinese (it's using satellites).
... anywhere Obama didn't want to (and vice versa).
If Obama was for it then Trump (or perhaps more precisely his supporters) are against it. It doesn't matter if it is right or wrong, they have PRE-judged the situation. Why? Because, and I'll be frank, they're racists or to use a softer word, bigots and PREjudice is what you'll get from them.
It's only now, in the somewhat clearer light of day after the election year (and now that Obama's blackness isn't quite so apparent), that it has become obvious how wrong most (all?) of Trump's positions were. Like his "I'll slap China with a 40% tariff on day one" or "I'll declare them a currency manipulator" or "I'll throw out NAFTA" or (of course) "Mexico will pay for the wall" or "Hillary's in bed with Goldman Sachs" (when three of Trump's top positions are from GS) or "I'll drain the swamp" and now allowing prior lobbyists to be hired by the White House or "The Iranian deal was a disaster" (he's recertified it twice) or "It won't happen" with a North Korean ICBM test to allowing ICBM and even H-bomb tests or "I'll support LGBT" people" then reversing protections and "no need to count them in the Census". Oh and of course let's not forget his insistence on demolishing Obamacare despite the fact that neither he nor congress nor the senate can come up with something better than what he has says is "a disaster called the big lie".
So I figure that Trump (and his supporters) just can't stand anything that Obama did so of course he'll decide to go to the moon because Obama wasn't going to. Then again, maybe it's just a lack of judgment as indicated by his campaign being assisted by a hostile foreign power (Russia) with several of his former staff now under multiple investigations (Flynn, Manafort) for TRAITOROUS crimes (not e-mails, think assisting a foreign power, $12M paid in one arrangement alone). Speaking of which, his wishing to continue to prosecute Clinton for using an a private e-mail account for official business is obviously hypocritical considering that SIX senior white house staff are using private e-mail accounts (with Kushner using three!) while serving in the White House. This lack of judgement of course extends to his evaluation of people like the many times he's flipped what he says about his top people from hiring them to "I have confidence in them" to firing them (Comey, Price, Bannon, Priebus). That of course doesn't count the number of times he's praised then flipped on people saying for example (Hillary Clinton) "is a great woman. And a good woman." and I "think she really works hard." and "I think she’d make a great president" to basically saying she should be imprisoned and implying much worse ("Shoot the b**tch" was a T-shirt he apparently didn't have problem with).
So, and I think you fellow slash dotters, have to SERIOUSLY ask yourself this question. Spend some time, don't jump to conclusions and weigh the evidence. Is he (and his followers) bigoted or just stupid?
I think a lot of both. :(
As far as going to the moon or not, that's for another post. However the Chinese :( or Elon Musk :) will probably get there first
...could be tweaked!
Like if you're a single guy/gal to look out for people who might pique your interest...
Like if you're security conscious, look out for people (cars?) who are UN-familiar in your area...
Like if you're an artist/designer/fashion person, look for certain patterns, colors, STYLES (ok, that'll be hard).
Having a brain behind the camera that isn't yours (the brain not the camera) lends itself to all sorts of interesting possibilities. Maybe it could even be taught to look for certain patterns (like this person or this KIND of person comes by this spot under these circumstances/times). Might be useful for marketing (oops, maybe that's not a good thing) but definitely surveillance.
It would also be good if the camera could read (in addition to having geo-tagging). That way it might be more context aware. Oh, and how about hearing? That way it could learn more about its environment (and what people are saying). How about a speaker? That way it could interrogate its subjects. Hmm... with enough work, this camera could become sentient!
So I know this probably wasn't the prime motivation for their research but if it could please lead to a cure for jet-lag I would hope they would be showered with huge monetary awards as well! As I've gotten older, jet-lag has made long-distance flying a source of real debilitation. I know this is (mostly) a first-world problem but there are plenty of pilots/military/leaders for whom being able to arrive reasonably alert (or at least not literally feeling sick) would be quite valuable for them and for those that they serve.
It isn't unheard of for a Nobel prize in medicine to lead, relatively quickly, to a treatment or a new drug. I think the scientists who discovered vasoconstriction inhibitors(?) found that it could be used therapeutically and it was commercialized rapidly. I'm talking about Viagra of course and I just happen to know about this because I'm, uh... interested!
like programmers wrote programs, the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
Sorry that's the only (hopefully funny) comment I could come up to contribute (and I didn't even come up with it, I read it somewhere in pre-Internet time!).
This flying "car" looks a lot like the KittyHawk Flyer (TM). Judging from the videos it seems that the KittyHawk is quite a bit further along, taking people aloft for demo flights at several major public venues.
https://kittyhawk.aero/
They look awfully similar which begs the question, is this another case of Russians SLAVIshly (ha ha, slavic get it?) copying a western design? (The Concordski and Space Shuttle come to mind). However this may simply be just because of the constraints put on by current technology, like the electric motors and batteries. Anyway, it's not clear yet which design is better; there are also woefully few details on the KittyHawk site.
I'd be tempted to go with the KH just because of the fact that 1) their demos seem to indicate its a lot closer to production 2) they have backing from one of the Google Founders 3) they seem to have been paying attention to FAA regulatory issues (it'll be a FAR 103 Ultralight) but since the KH is meant only to be used over freshwater in un-congested areas, if the Russian design has something that'll allow it to be used in more locations, it's worth a look.
Considering that in 50 years the climate is projected there to become LETHAL to a normal, healthy adult in the shade, I think this is the only way that these countries will continue to exist.
https://www.theguardian.com/en...
Actually, this solution may work, grandiose as it is, for the rich cities like Dubai (assuming they can live off their oil derived fortunes). Unfortunately for those who cannot afford to live in round the clock air-conditioned environments, like the entire country of Yemen, they'll DIE.
Or they'll join the hundreds of millions of refugees from that just that part of the world. (It doesn't include the more than HALF A BILLION people living in similar areas in South Asia). Or the hundreds of millions from other countries including East China and even parts of the U.S.
http://news.nationalgeographic...
Of course, they'll try to find a cooler climate to live in, UNDER PAIN OF DEATH. How the world will handle this, when the (tiny by comparison) six million refugees from the Syrian war has tightened borders everywhere, does not inspire hope.
The future may be a very very horrific place for much of humanity
Pretty soon, A.I. will be able to identify you in public; first when you voluntarily give up your "identity" (such as use a fingerprint scanner or iris scanner) then at a distance when facial recognition or voice analysis will be able to pick you out of a crowd. Maybe, paired with enough data, you'll even be tracked from a great distance based on your clothing and gait analysis.
They'll be able to learn what you do, what you drive, what you eat (and where and when) and of course who you associate with (and maybe why!). Soon, your preferences and habits will become part of your profile; whether or not you like your coffee black, are you an aggressive driver, do you look at other members of the opposite sex.
Let's hope that the people keeping this data don't get hacked (like Equifax!).
Finally, this will be paired with your genetic profile (full disclosure, that's what I analyze). Then, unless pesky privacy laws prevent this, they'll be able to match your habits/health/profession with your gene expression. In the best outcome; you'll get an e-mail from Genes "R" Us saying that with a simple modification of your genes administered (via oral CRISPR) you could be 20% more effective in your work/sex life/happiness. In the worst outcome you'll be subtly manipulated to purchase products that for some strange reason appeal to you; or you'll find yourself doing things that aren't in your best interest (like becoming very irritable when exposed to a certain scent). Of course, if the people who are manipulating you are allowed to make changes to your DNA then you could literally end up their puppet. (Well, once they have behavioral genetics figured out).
But don't worry, this won't happen for at least another 5 years!
Yes, I took a look at TFA and although they didn't go about simulating the "universe" from basic laws (not that we have a theory of everything yet :) they DID start at the (sort of) particle level using something called OTCA megapixels. From these they built the fundamental logic gates and from that a (simple?) computer and from that a (simple?) language and (simple?) compiler and then wrote and compiled and ran a (simple, no colors or audio?) Tetris program!
So if anyone tells you they don't believe that we are living in a simulation, just show them what a bunch of (very very smart) engineers were able to do in their (spare?) time! :)